Clouds of tear fuel and shopfronts smashed – and Emmanuel Macron wouldn’t have loved the protesters’ message

It was a mix of demonstration and riot and it created a sensory overload. Paris at present reverberated to noise, smells, voices and evocative sights.

The purple and black flares that billowed by way of the guts of town; the police charging at teams of individuals, pushing them again; the wispy clouds of tear fuel that rolled down boulevards; shopfronts smashed for no purpose; the cacophonous booms of thunderclap fireworks thrown into wheelie bins simply earlier than they explode.

There was violence on either side – there are few angels on sight on days like this – however the French police have learnt a lesson.

At the top of March, they have been roundly condemned for his or her brutality in controlling an illustration, the place they appeared to assault individuals indiscriminately.

Shortly earlier than the primary tear fuel canister was fired right here, French policing was criticised on the United Nations for its “excessive use of force”. Part of that grievance did come from Russia, however there was additionally criticism from European pals like Sweden and Norway.

Here, confronted by rocks being thrown at them and properties being smashed, the police have been unapologetically strong.

Read extra: More than 60 injured in clashes throughout France protests

There is little that’s refined about tear fuel, water cannon or being whacked by a baton, but it surely was no shock. They had promised to be “harsh” with anybody inflicting violence.

But when it got here to the remainder of the protesters, there appeared higher restraint. The police had mentioned they wished to guard the integrity of the demonstration, in spite of everything.

And so amid the melees, there was a message. And it was not one which Emmanuel Macron would have loved.

The French president was the villain of this piece of theatre, derided on posters, banners and in mocking songs.

His pension adjustments the focus of a lot of this fury, but additionally his resolution to push the reforms by way of with out parliamentary approval.

“He is not a legitimate president anymore,” one younger protester advised me.

Another, a lady dressed as a Roman emperor to mock Macron’s obvious love of energy, mentioned merely that she was “furious” and that “it is time for him to go”.

He will not go, after all. But nevertheless laborious he tries to distract consideration, after which the main focus to different issues, France continues to obsess about his pension reforms.

And so it was right here. In fact, violence that broke out all through this demonstration was as a lot the results of the acquainted “black bloc” of organised agitators because it was to do with pension reform. But it appeared to synthesise what so many have been pondering – that ordinary individuals have been being taken without any consideration, or, worse, ignored.

Macron has at all times needed to struggle the allegation that he’s aloof from the individuals he leads – extra keen on sweeping change and political grandstanding than within the day-to-day lifetime of his nation. He gained the final election, say his critics, just because individuals disliked Marine Le Pen much more than they disliked him.

Once he was the upstart outsider who reinvented French politics. Now he’s seen by many because the institution incarnate.

“He is the president for just one person, and that’s himself,” one particular person advised me amid the hullabaloo of the Paris protest.

For Macron, a couple of miles away within the Elysee Palace, that’s not a status to welcome.